


the silence we don't talk about

by Skylark



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Insomnia, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Pre-Slash, Secrets, summer camp arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Couldn't sleep?"</p><p>"I wish," Kuroo groans, his calves complaining as he hikes up the hill to meet Sugawara at the halfway point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the silence we don't talk about

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ize_09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ize_09/gifts).



> Dear recipient, happy holidays and I hope your coming year is full of joy ♥ Thank you to [Binni](http://archiveofourown.org/users/binni) for the super-fast beta!

It's just so _loud_ in here. 

He's gone to enough of these summer camps to know every sordid secret about his teammate's sleeping habits: Fukunaga talks in his sleep, Taketora has a tendency to punch whomever’s sleeping next to him by accident, and Lev is so bad that they all exiled him to a corner of the room. Kenma is crunched up into a ball, pressed hard against Kuroo's side with a hand fisted in the hem of Kuroo's shirt. Kenma used to sleep like this when they were in elementary school, and he still reverts to old habits when he's worn out. Usually Kuroo doesn't mind, but right now Kenma's too hot and too close for the summer weather.

Kuroo groans quietly into the nest of pillows around his head. He feels like he's dying from the heat and the noise, like the air is too humid to breathe, and his forearms still ache from all of Bokuto's spikes during free practice. His head is rattling with exhaustion but he can't sleep, not like this.

He reaches down to free the fistful of shirt that Kenma is clutching. Usually Kenma wakes at the slightest movement, but tonight he doesn't stir as Kuroo slips free of the futon. His eyebrows crunch a little, but Kuroo pokes a finger between them and they smooth out again.

Kuroo yawns as he steps out of Nekoma's room, stretching his arms above his head and feeling soreness radiate from his fingertips down his arms and even further to the line of his back. It's hot out here in the hallway, too, and the only thought he can manage is _outside_ as he shuffles down the hall.

When he yanks open the door that leads to the long, sloping hill behind the gym, he stops to breathe a sigh of relief. It's just as hot outside but it's less humid, at least. He rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand, and then freezes when he sees a flash of pale hair.

"Of course," he mutters to himself, trying to slow his heart from where it's kicked into double time. Of course the person he's been crushing on since the last summer camp is out here, too. Mentally he strikes _getting any rest_ off of his mental list of things to do tonight.

He starts to step backwards through the door, but before he can make it the boy on the hill struggles up onto his elbows. "Who's there?" calls a soft voice.

Well, damn. Kuroo runs a hand through his hair (a useless gesture, he's pretty sure that only made it worse) and steps forward, away from the shadow of the building. "Hey," he says.

Sugawara peers at him for another long moment—he must have poor night vision. "Kuroo?"

Kuroo takes it as permission to walk forward, lifting a hand in acknowledgement. "The one and only," he says.

Sugawara doesn't laugh, but he does shuffle a little to the side, patting the space beside him. It seems Sugawara had the forethought to bring a bedsheet to sit on. "Couldn't sleep?"

"I wish," Kuroo groans, his calves complaining as he hikes up the hill to meet Sugawara at the halfway point. As he comes closer, he sees that Sugawara's hair is rumpled from lying down, that his sleeping shirt is thin enough to be nearly-translucent. He's half-smiling, too weary to affect his usual charm, and there are shadows under his eyes. 

"The guys on my team are so loud," Kuroo says. "I don't know how they don't wake each other up."

Sugawara wraps his arms around his knees, eyes gleaming like Kuroo's telling him a secret. "Really? Like snoring and stuff? Who's the loudest?"

"Yaku," Kuroo says, straight-faced.

Sugawara's eyes widen. "No way."

Kuroo nods, and he can't help himself—now he's smiling too as he eases himself down onto the sheet. The cotton is blessedly cool against his legs as he stretches them out. Sugawara bursts into laughter beside him, tipping over sideways to bump their shoulders together, his hair a soft, fleeting brush against Kuroo's skin. He can feel his cheeks stain red at the touch.

"What about everyone else?" Sugawara says, but Kuroo shakes his head.

"I told you a team secret," he says. "Now you tell me one."

"You want to know about Karasuno?" Sugawara asks. Kuroo licks his lips and looks away, weighing the risk of his next sentence.

"I'd take a secret about you, if you'd prefer," he says. 

Sugawara goes quiet, like Kuroo thought he would. Kuroo gives him time to process, but the silence stretches for too long. He feels his stomach twist with nerves, and is opening his mouth to play it off as a joke when Sugawara's voice cuts through the night, quieter this time.

"I'm an insomniac," he says. "That's why I'm out here."

Kuroo glances at him but Sugawara is staring forward, his lips pressed together. He thinks of _Sugawara_ and _late nights_ and finds they fit in the same thought better than he expected. It's a lonely thought, though, imagining Sugawara gazing out of his bedroom window, limned in moonlight.

Kuroo cocks his head. "You know why my hair's always like this?" he says, gesturing towards it.

Sugawara turns back toward him to see what he's talking about and Kuroo feels some of his nervousness turn to calm, as if he's bolstered by Sugawara's attention. This close to him, he can see the small shifts in Sugawara's expression, how he goes from curious to realizing to wryly amused. The beauty mark near his left eye crinkles when he smiles and nope, Kuroo was wrong—it is so much worse when Sugawara is looking at him, because when he swallows hard Sugawara's eye drops to follow the line of his throat and his gaze burns under Kuroo's skin, hotter than the weather.

"Why is your hair like that?" Sugawara asks, bringing his attention back, but his voice has dropped to a lower, more intimate register. Now it really does feel like they're swapping secrets, even though Kuroo's isn't much of a secret at all. "I thought it was, I don't know, a Tokyo fashion or something."

Sugawara's voice is teasing, and Kuroo huffs out a small laugh as he shakes his head. "I'm a really light sleeper—sound, temperature, light, basically anything can wake me up. I figured out that the best way to sleep is if I press pillows against my ears, but then I can't get my hair to lie flat. And sometimes it gets hard to breathe like that, too, so...I don't sleep much in the summer, either."

Sugawara hums. "What do you do when you can't sleep?"

"Play Dragon Quest," he says, grinning when Sugawara laughs. "What about you?"

Sugawara gestures upward. "I like looking at the stars," he says.

Kuroo looks up. "Huh," he says. "You really can see a lot of them out here. In Tokyo, you can't see any at all."

Sugawara is silent for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is careful—the same kind of carefulness that Kuroo recognized in his own voice a few minutes before. "You can see a lot more stars in Miyagi than you can here. You should come visit sometime and see for yourself."

Sugawara won't look at him again. He's pretty bad at hiding his nerves; he's just so expressive, from the nervous moue of his mouth to the way his fingers rumple the sheet beneath them. Kuroo's a bit relieved that he's not the only one who's on edge.

 _Do you like me?_ he wants to blurt out, but he knows it's too early. He knows Sugawara would give him a straight answer if he asked, but Kuroo wants to play this game out a little longer still.

"Do you want to trade numbers?" he says instead. "We can be insomnia buddies. Give me a call whenever you can't sleep."

Sugawara takes a breath before he nods. "Yeah," he says. "That would be nice."

Kuroo lies next to Sugawara on the sheet for a while, listening to Sugawara point out constellations, sketching in the air with a finger above both their heads. They call it a night when Suga's sentences are more than 60% yawning, and Sugawara brushes a tentative hand against Kuroo's shoulder when they break to go separate ways down the hall to their own rooms.

Kuroo falls back into bed and, for the first time in a while, doesn't dream at all.


End file.
